Right...

The couch is full of matzah crumbs, yom tov has arrived. Can't go back to Tel Aviv until tomorrow evening, camping out in the kitchen of the apartment whose owners went camping. Probably going to eat more matzah. Maybe with salt. I hope they don't mind me eating their matzah. Maybe I can make matzah toast, with, cheese, and salt. The combinations are really endless.

The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library sent me a package just recently. I had written to them about my failure at finding any good Vonnegut literature over here. Sure enough, they provided. "Poo-tee-weet"

My belly is full of matzah. There is a can of Nutella next to the matzah. There are macaroons next to the Nutella. There is matzah next to the Nutella. This is a dangerous scenario. The Nutella would most certainly give some uumph to those, most definitely. There are innumerable risks, though, my friends. Let me try to numerate the innumerable.

First, the problem of hametz. Once a year, this menace comes out to terrorize those who wish to keep a kosher pesach. It, hametz, it is lurking in every corner, in every crevice it awaits to jump out at those who are of halachic mind and conscientious persuasion. Beer? Hametz. That Bueno candy bar? Hametz. Hamburger roll? Get out of town.

[enter character]

Clearly, the crackers, the things of ferment and grain, these are hametz. Fair enough. Be gone, crackers and bread and candies and cookies and this and that! Leave this fridge, you are banished!

Good, good. You have come far, your conscious whispers. You pace, looking for the who-knows how many times. You are through. Eyes, scanning. Mind, racing, thinking, double-checking hechshers.

It's been a good show, lad[ess]. You're patting yourself on the back, time for a treat! Since there is no bread in the house, you break out that quarter-ton box of matzah. Mmmm. Waft the smell of impending liberation.

Back to the Nutella. It's time. Nutella knife in hand, twist-twist, done. It's time.

Knife meets Nutella. If there is a heaven that makes matches, this is most certainly a match made there. Swirl, swirl. Pausing, the light bounces upon something within the decadent-dark — what's that?

Knife dips into Nutella. Must retrieve this speck. Speck of, of,

Face flush, eyes wide... oh no. Could it be? It couldn't be?

All is lost. My dear friends, this poor soul has lost the battle between man and hametz. Someone has been dipping more than knives in that jar of heaven. You guessed it, so-and-so from such-and-such neglected the knife for a bread-in-the-jar approach. The Nutella is lost, hametz has won. Dejected as may be, the world cowers into the universe.

...

Where is the hope, dear people? I don't know...

What happened to the character of our short story? Well...

Let this be a warning.

"Poo-tee-weet"